wolf and man

In the middle 1960s I brought home a small wolf pup to raise, which surprised my young wife. 

Wolves are not very dangerous. In the recorded history of the United States, there is no documented case of wild wolves killing a human. You can't say that for, say, deer.

Our pup had a fine coat of blacks, silvers and red-brown parts. We took him to a zoo to make sure what he was, a legitimate southern wolf, although I don't suppose there was such a thing in those days as a wolf with no dog genes in him. Wolves and dogs interbreed and produce young.

My wolf clearly believed that other dogs and other wolves were the same thing. 

The pup adopted me as his family leader, I think. He would groom me by licking the top of my head until my hair was sopping with wolf saliva. 

 I accepted him for what he was, a wolf, and did not attempt to change him. That might have been the key to our relationship. I'm grateful for our time together.

The wolf was the first animal people domesticated and the only large predator. Maybe the wolf came first because it was the easiest (I did it myself). Wolves and people lived in similar family structures. There's speculation that ancient wolves and ancient people may have camped near one another and teamed up informally on hunts. They both liked to eat horses. A few wolves hanging around campfires may have tamed themselves in exchange for food. 

If you're afraid of bears (and you should be) there's nothing like adding some wolves to your camp perimeter defense. The only time I saw my wolf enraged was the one time he came across a bear, whom he instantly hated with all his heart.  

The Automatic Voter

Most American voters are automatic. That is, they always vote Republican. Or they always vote Democratic. They don't have to think about it. I suspect that the results of automatic voting are as positive or negative, on the whole, as the results of careful voting by independents who take the time to read and think for themselves. 

Automatic support for a party is a time-saving shortcut. 

Our two major political parties have different roles, of course. The Republican party of today exists to transfer money from poor people to the 1%. It uses racism and sexism to accomplish that. The Democratic voters of today are a composite of outsiders.  The leadership is there to provide jobs for itself and maybe attempt to improve the lot of the middle class a bit if it's no trouble. So I vote--as an independent--for Democrats.

The Sky

Imagine that there's a large nation in West Asia ruled by El Supremo, an authoritarian decision-maker. Everyone obeys him (for now). Or at least it looks--from a distance--as if everyone obeys him. 

El Supremo's qualification for holding a position of central importance for 8o million people is that he's the world's leading expert on an imaginary friend in the sky. This spirit in the sky apparently cares deeply about what humans eat and how they have intercourse and how many times each day they face the east and how they comb their hair. (Not even El Supremo can say why. ) 

The Biden Meritocracy

I don't know any Bidens, and I don't care to meet one, but I do want to know what laws Hunter Biden has broken. As far as I can tell, he has not been charged with anything illegal in Ukraine.  

Bob Barr, tRump's furtive anus-sniffer, has an army of attorneys at his disposal, but he has yet to charge Hunter Biden with a crime in America. The topic never comes up.  

It's fair to suspect that Hunter Biden is sleazy in the sense that he is a coddled prince of the oligarchy, but so are a million others. It's legal. It's part of a worldwide meritocratic system, in which merit consists of being born to privilege.

Why We Need More Aircraft Carriers

As of this writing, the United States owns 24 aircraft carriers and helicopter docks. China owns one. It might seem to you that China, a new world power, is catching up. But we have the John F. Kennedy under construction at a cost of less than 17 billion dollars.  Soon it will be 25 carriers to 1. 

You might wonder why China lags behind with only one aircraft carrier. The answer is that China is a young nation that hasn't figured out war yet. In an age of intercontinental missiles and drones flown from couches in Kansas, China has neglected the building of really expensive, big fat target-boxes that float on water and can race away to safety at 35 mph. 


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The Fate of Pompeo the Coward

According to Herodotus, when Xerxes and his army failed in their attempt to cross the strait between Europe and Turkey, Xerxes ordered his inept bridge builders beheaded and then had red-hot irons heated and used them to brand the incoming tide. 

Today President Heelspurs stands ankle deep in an impeachment tide. He's screaming at aides like Pompeo the Coward, because Pompeo can't stop the waters creeping up his boss's swollen legs. 

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Those Crazy Democrats

Recently former President Obama frowned darkly on about half of the Democratic coalition. Obama said:

“The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it. And I think it's important for us not to lose sight of that,” Obama said. “There are a lot of persuadable voters and there are a lot of Democrats out there who just want to see things make sense. They just don't want to see crazy stuff. They want to see things a little more fair, they want to see things a little more just. And how we approach that I think will be important.”

I'm struck by the idea of the average American. That person would be a middle-aged woman of mixed race in her second marriage (in my opinion). She voted twice for Obama. 

Perhaps President Obama hopes to unite the Democratic coalition (right wing Democrats, centrists, left wing Democrats, progressive independents, women, youth, minorities, organized labor) behind a slogan like "Make things a little more fair." But will that ignite the voting base and increase turnout? Or might Obama hurt this effort by calling the positions of social democrats like AOC "crazy stuff"? She doesn't seem all that crazy to me. I like her. 

Why Smear Yovanovitch?

Why did tRump smear Ambassador Yovanovitch? He had the power to replace her at any time and without explanation. The smearing was unnecessary and seemingly pointless. But not, I think, for tRump. His motivation isn't simply that he's grifter. There's a second key: he savors the cruelty. That's half of every decision he makes. It must be cruel.

The White Country

In October's HARPERS, Lionel Shriver pointed out that the claim that the United States has always been a melting pot is a myth. The idea was that almost anyone could move to this country and fit in. That seldom actually happened unless you came from Europe.

I don't have the exact figures, but 80 years ago, about 85% of Americans were white people of European extraction. More than 10% of us were black; the rest were Asians, Latinos and Amerindians in small numbers. 

Today the percentage of white people in America has dropped about 25  points to around 60%.

Global warming is driving people of color into the northern nations. Most of them would rather stay home, but they move to survive. North America and Europe are finally becoming cultural and racial melting pots, and angry resistance to newcomers is one reason tRump got elected. Something big has changed. Diversity is no longer a pretense. 

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